State dental boards exist for a fundamental reason: to protect the public. They license and regulate dental professionals, establish standards, enforce dental practice acts, investigate violations, and help ensure that individuals providing care possess the education, training, and competency required to perform it safely. Tennessee’s Board of Dentistry, for example, states its mission explicitly: to “safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of Tennesseans” by requiring dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants practicing within the state to be qualified.¹
But recent developments in Missouri and Tennessee raise an uncomfortable question: When a dental board seeks to expand what a less-educated or less-regulated member of the dental team may perform—particularly when questions exist about whether that expansion exceeds the authority granted by statute—whose interests are actually being protected?
Source: Who are state dental boards really meant to protect? / Dentistry IQ